The Essence of Insanity
by TheLostRelic
Summary: "Einstein once said that insanity meant doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. Well, then that means that everybody that has ever been heart broken and ever will be heart broken is insane. We've loved and lost, but we strap up our boots and head back out onto the battlefield, hunting for love even though we're hurt and still haven't learned."


**THE ESSENCE OF INSANITY**

They say that your first love has a special place in your heart. You see, I have a problem with that statement. To presume the validity of the aforementioned statement, one must first acknowledge the existence of the aforementioned "place", as in a physical or metaphorical space that your first love embodies. So if we think about this visually, you have a standard cliche heart, in it's iconic shape, except there is a segment, sort of like a cubby or a hole, that your first love occupies.

Obviously, this raises all sorts of questions. For example, if your first love occupies this space, then what state of being did this space exist in before you met your first love? Was it empty? Or was it just a space that became hollowed out for your first love to occupy? In the case of the latter, what must the criteria for your first love be in order to excavate said space? Do you merely have to feel drawn or attracted to them? Or do you actually have to go out with them and share your secrets and tell each other you love one another?

People always tell me that things are simple. They say, "Don't overcomplicate things, Annabeth! Things aren't nearly as complex as you make them out to be." Well to that, I say: How can it be anything, but complex? Love, probably by definition, cannot be simple otherwise _everybody_ would be doing it right. There is no formulaic "right way" to go about dealing with love. Odds are, you are going to fall flat on your face whenever you try to find love.

Things go wrong.

For instance, your crush could, _I don't know_, potentially get blown to smithereens in a volcanic eruption only to return from an island similar to paradise where he spent his days lounging with a beautiful immortal woman that promised to make all his problems go away if he loved her forever and ever only to crash his own funeral two weeks later.

As the saying goes: shit happens. That's pretty much my life in a nutshell - _shit happens_.

That's kind of nifty because shit can be taken to mean "things" in which case the expression reads as "things happen". It can also be read as "shit" modifying the intransitive verb "happen", in which case that describes the nature of the "things" that happen meaning that "things happen" in a "shitty" manner. I don't know, I thought that was pretty apt.

In my case, the shit in question is not of your everyday, mundane variety, _oh no_. In my case, your regular humdrum shit is thoroughly insufficient. Instead, I have to deal with heavy duty shit, the kind that makes you wrinkle your nose from twenty feet away. In my case, I have to deal with the super ultra deluxe special Sham-wow "But-wait-there's-more-insert-Billy-Mays" edition kind of shit.

So what exactly am I blathering about? Well, I'll tell you what: my boyfriend dumped me. That's right folks, Percy "Savior of Humanity x2" Jackson dumped me.

Why would he do such a thing, you might ask? Yes, why Annabeth? After all, you are obviously stunningly beautiful and incomparably intelligent and caring, you might say. To that I would say: thank you, but then I would say a certain marriage goddess may or may not have erased his memories and now he may or may not have fallen for his super model looking co-Praetor at the Roman Camp because he didn't know I existed.

Same old, same old.

For those of you that didn't know, that was _sarcasm_. Hurray!

Percy thinks I am a freak for "stalking" him now. Hey, it's not my fault if he doesn't remember me and I am trying to help him remember! He pretends that I don't exist, probably because he doesn't enjoy feeling uncomfortable. On more than one occasion a Roman Centurion would have to remind me to stay away from him and his new girlfriend, Reyna.

People say that life operates on principles of Newtonian Mechanics, ie: to every action there is always an equal and opposite reaction (That was his third law for those keeping score at home). In other words: karma. Now correct me if I am wrong, but I think that it's not particularly _fair_ if your boyfriend/soul mate that you risked your life to protect on countless occasions suddenly doesn't remember you, like you, or acknowledge you exist. Karma is a whole load of hogwash and balderdash, a whole load of poppycock and malarkey - that's what it is.

I suppose maybe it would have been fine if he didn't remember me and fell for Reyna because that's all Hera's doing. I could cope with that because then we might at least have been friends, and if the universe didn't hate me, we could have potentially gotten back together again. Unfortunately, that is not the case. You see, Percy flat out doesn't _like_ me; correction, can't _stand_ me.

I mean, sure, the first time we met each other, we didn't hit it off right away. What, with my offhanded comment about him drooling in his sleep, and him constantly trying to dash my hopes of actually going on a real quest, I think that it's safe to say that we had somewhat of a rough start. However, the fact that he avidly detests me is _completely_ uncalled for. Like, it's not cool to call bodyguards in on your ex-girlfriend.

The least that he could do was at least pretend that I exist. Again, not the case (I'm starting to notice a little pattern here). Percy looks straight through me whenever I walk past him, and doesn't acknowledge me whenever I say anything. Now, I can't even _begin_ to tell you how much that hurts me. All my fun linguistic gymnastics aside, Percy is being kind of an asshat. Now, I don't even know what an asshat is, but it sounds insulting, so by golly, I'm going to call him that!

If the love of your life suddenly decided that your existence no longer warranted attention, how would you feel? This is presuming that it once warranted attention, but doesn't any longer. Obviously, the next question becomes, what variable has changed? What's made it so that your existence is now meaningless? I swear on Hermes's stinky gym shorts, I have asked myself that question about a hundred times since I jumped off the Argo II, ready to feel my boyfriend's arms around me for the first time in months. Instead, all I got was a blank, kind of disgusted look from him, and a guilty, somewhat smug look from his new girlfriend.

And they say "shit happens". (Insert indignant scoff)

So basically, my heart is in pieces, and I don't have the energy or motivation to pick up the pieces. Not like anyone is trying to help me out. Probably the only person that could have been of use to me at this moment would have been Grover, but he's not a part of the Prophecy of Seven so I guess I am just stick all by my lonesome. Next thing I know, they'll be giving Reyna my spot on the Argo for the quest. Funny thought, hahaha. (Insert insecure laughter)

I've always had trust issues, but this has to be the lowest blow that anyone has dealt me in a long time. Maybe it just seems more grievous because I genuinely believed in and trusted Percy, unlike the way I trusted the others, but it still sucks incredibly.

A part of me wonders if all males are asshats. I mean, I have a ton of examples to go off of - my dad, Luke, and now Percy. It seems like every masculine figure that I get close to turns out to be a world class asshat. Everyone tells me to trust guys more, but _forgive_ _me_ for not being able to do so.

Naturally, because everything seems to have inflated value in my world, Percy's betrayal didn't just take a piece of my heart away - he took a chunk. The metaphorical space that was left after his _willful_ absence occupies an area that is approximately the size of Idaho and Wyoming put together.

Apparently, it is very easy to forget that I had been there for him when he provoked Ares into fighting him. It's also really easy to forget that I had saved him from living as a guinea pig for the rest of his life. Traveling across the entire country and lifting the weight of the sky for me was equally as unimpressionable. The fact that I was his first kiss, and also helped him realize that Luke was the true hero of prophecy was also quite unimportant.

Be that as it may, Percy should at least _want_ to hear about his exploits and the times we shared together instead of avoiding them. You can't erase your past forever, but he doesn't seem to realize that.

Somewhere along the road, I just gave up on him. I realized that he wasn't worth the effort, and that if he truly was mine, he would come back on his own terms. That doesn't really stop me from hurting or wanting him back though. For now, all I know is that the guy that I see waltzing around New Rome is _not_ Percy, he's just a pale imitation, an empty husk, of the real deal. That thought brings me some comfort, but his transformation thoroughly disturbs me. If it's that easy for him to be somebody that he's not, it makes me wonder if the guy I knew was ever real in the first place or if he was just a persona to be cast off at will.

Truth be told, I don't know anymore, and that scares me. The thought that what we had was never real at all terrifies me, and appropriately so. It's not everyday when you realize your whole relationship was a lie. Well, unless you're Piper, then that's kind of normal, but she's the exception, I swear!

The point is that now, all those moments, memories, and experiences don't really mean anything to him anymore. They mean something to me, and I live in those memories with the Percy that I knew for as long as I can, but I know that sooner or later, they will fade into the background and this reality will be the foundation for my new memories of him. And so, I avoid him as well now, because I can't really bear to have new memories of _this_ Percy; I would much rather have no memories and a lingering good feeling when I think back about him then have this abomination contaminate what we had.

That gaping Idaho plus Wyoming shaped hole that Percy left behind still remains, and like any other flesh wound, my heart is numb and unable to feel. I know that it will take a while before I regain the capacity to trust and to love again. I know that I'll make the same mistakes over and over again, but I am me and therefore that's kind of a given.

Since I'm apparently on a roll disproving scientific statements, I will disprove one of Einstein's. Einstein once said that the definition of insanity means doing the same thing over and over again, but expecting a different result. Well, then that means that everybody that has ever been heart broken and will be heart broken is insane. Because we've loved and lost, but we still strap up our boots and head back out onto the battlefield, hunting for love even though we're sporting significant flesh wounds.

We do it over and over again, but we hope to the gods that there will be a different result, because otherwise no one would ever _stay_ in love. So even though we get our hearts broken, we never truly learn our lesson, because given enough time, all of us will eventually head back out, trying to find what the previous offender couldn't provide. And this maddening cycle continues repeatedly through the eons from every catalogued civilization imaginable because it's an inherent part of the human condition. However, each time we return to the battlefield, there's a little bit more of us that gets left behind, and no matter what, there are pieces of us that will forever belong to those that broke us. They're free to do whatever they wish with those pieces, but they can never return them.

What does that tell us about the heart? Haven't the foggiest. Ha! I bet you thought I was going to have an epic philosophical or scientific explanation, but I totally duped you. You, sir/madam, have been had.

So in the end, for the time being at least, I don't think that I'll be able to look at guys the same way again, but then again, can you really blame me?

* * *

**A/N: Many people have asked me why I seemed to hate on female characters so much, and for the longest time, I didn't really know why. I came upon the stunning realization later that it was because I got some sort of psychological kick out of bashing on them because of things my ex-girlfriend did to me. Basically, this one shot is kind of a testament to why I feel the way that I do, and so that it would be easier for you to understand. If you reverse genders and scale down the exploits, you'll basically get my story. I just felt that it would be fair to write it from the other gender's perspective. I decided to have a little fun with the writing to really let my personality shine through to make things more interesting. Not all the views presented are my own, but everything is in ****_my_**** tone. I hope this makes it easier to understand where I come from with my characters. **

**PS: Don't feel bad for me, and don't write sympathy reviews. I wrote this one shot as a point of clarification, not to win pity or sympathy. I can deal with my demons, trust me.**

**PSS: There are a ton of run-ons and grammatical/syntactic errors at work here, but the story was meant to have a rambly feel to it, so it's intentional.**

**PSSS: I realize that I totally messed up Einstein's theory, but that was kind of intentional. At least, pretend it was because I am aware of it, but I like the concept even if it is kind of incorrect. **


End file.
